‘Our goal is clear, we want freedom’: Mirwaiz on Social Media

In an angry response to government curbs on him and other leaders of the Joint Resistance Leadership, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq Monday took to social media for reaching out to people, and put out a 30-minute long video message coming down heavily on the government.
Without naming Prime Minister Narendera Modi, the Mirwaiz said Kashmir struggle was not for the development of roads or seeking economic packages but purely for seeking right to self-determination as promised by Indian leaders themselves.
Irked for being disallowed to reach martyr’s graveyard Eidgah to pay tributes to his father Mirwaiz Moulana Muhammad Farooq on his 28th martyrdom anniversary, Mirwaiz took to Facebook and Twitter to address the people.
In his 30-minute message, the Mirwaiz said his family has been suffering since 1947 when Muhajir-e-Milat, Moulana Mirwaiz Muhammad Yousuf Shah was asked to leave Kashmir along with his family.
“Though they tried hard to return back to their roots but every time they were stopped by the successive regimes,” said a visibly angry Mirwaiz.
In an obvious reference to Prime Minister Modi’s recent speech at SKICC, Srinagar wherein he asserted the only solution to every conflict was development; Mirwaiz said Kashmir issue is not about seeking roads, jobs, electricity or economic packages.
“Kashmiri people have been sacrificing in huge numbers since 1947 for a right promised to them. We are not demanding anything new but our birth right that is right to self-determination.”
He said this right has been promised by none other than the Indian leadership at the LalChowk in Srinagar.
“Linking Kashmir issue with development is a well planned move to divert attention of world community from the real ground situation here,” Mirwaiz said.
“We will not allow that to happen.”
Taking a dig at the ruling dispensation for imposing strict curbs across Kashmir, especially in Srinagar, Mirwaiz sharply criticised years of continuous house arrest of Syed Ali Geelani and frequent jailing of Muhammad Yasin Malik.
“Government has been trying to keep the leadership away from masses. But we will always find alternate means to reach out to people and convey out strategy,” the Mirwaiz said, appealing the masses to keep faith in the resistance leadership.
“We will never compromise on the true aspirations of masses.”
Mirwaiz said the JRL has decided to involve every segment of society to frame an effective mechanism to achieve “our goal.”
“We seek cooperation from everybody—doctors, lawyers, traders, students and others in framing an effective strategy for future.”
Paying tributes to his father Mirwaiz Farooq, Abdul Gani Lone and 60 martyrs of Hawal massacre, the leader said the people of Kashmir have been offering their precious lives for a sacred cause since 1931.
“Mirwaiz family has been made a target by all the regimes since 1947 when MirwaizMolvi Muhammad Yousuf Shah was exiled. My maternal aunt, who had been treating my father like her son, suffered depression on the other side of LoC and died in the same condition,” he said.
“We lost many family members whose last wish of returning back to their home land remained unfilled.”
Mirwaiz Umar said his father always used the pulpit of Jamia Masjid for representing the true aspirations of people of Kashmir.
“My father led a massive protest against the infamous Indira-Abdullah accord of 1975 at the then Goal Bagh (presently high court). It was he who coined the slogan (ye mulqhamarahai, Iskafaisla hum karengay (this country is ours, and we shall decide its fate),” Mirwaiz said.
“It was my father who made people of Kashmir aware that bilateralism was not going to work and for the resolution of Kashmir people have to be taken on board.”
He also said how Mirwaiz Farooq’s death created a vacuum in their family.
“But there are many gory chapters of Kashmir and in fact every Kashmiri has a history of sacrifices. Hundreds of families have lost their fathers, sons, daughters and mothers,” Mirwaiz said.
“While people of Kashmir continued to offer their blood for the movement, leadership too offered their precious lives.”
In the video message the Mirwaiz reminded people of massacres in the history of Kashmir where numerous graveyards were perpetual witnesses to the struggle of masses for political rights.
“Today, when we talk of sacrifices, we have to take a pledge to take forward the mission of martyrs collectively. We have to ask the world community how long selective killing of Kashmiris would continue at the hands of government forces,” the chief cleric and resistance leader said.

“Our goal is clear, we want freedom.”